


Mudbloods

by MelyndaR



Series: Don't Fear the Fall [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 09:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: B’Elanna closed her eyes against the rage building in her chest at whoever had put these ideas into Naomi’s head, sucking in a silent breath to stay calm, before she opened her eyes and firmly swiped the picture of the rhino off the PADD screen. She had known that the people they’d encountered today were primitive by Star Fleet’s standards, but this level of bigotry was ridiculous. It was something she’d hoped none of the children aboard Voyager would ever have to experience, but her hopes were thoroughly being dashed now.





	Mudbloods

****

“Lieutenant Torres?”

B’Elanna looked up from the PADD she was reading to see Ensign Wildman come up to her with lines of worry carved into her forehead. “Yes?”

“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in your Jeffrey’s tubes since we left the planet Warsarn a few hours ago?”

B’Elanna’s eyebrows drew together with confusion as she shook her head. “No. Should I have?”

“Well, I haven’t been able to find Naomi since we came back aboard, and the computer said she was in Jeffrey’s tube three, so I went to try and find her, and she’s… essentially, she’s been using the Jeffrey’s tubes as her own personal maze today to avoid people, and I don’t know why. I thought you might have heard her, or that she might’ve come out in engineering at some point.”

B’Elanna shook her head. “I haven’t seen her. And I’ve known she’s in the tubes in the past, but it’s a little unnerving that she’s figured out how to move so quietly through them.”

Ensign Wildman huffed out a little laugh as she nodded. “I think she does it more than she lets on. Usually she uses them as nothing more harmful than a… a maze or playground, and she knows how to keep out of people’s way so it’s not a problem, but she was upset when we came back aboard, and she refused to tell me why, and now she’s disappeared for the rest of the day. I left her alone for as long as I could, but she needs to come back to our quarters soon to go to bed.”

“Maybe Neelix could get her to come out?” B’Elanna suggested.

Ensign Wildman shook her head. “He’s already tried. So has Seven of Nine.”

“Icheb?”

“He came back… angry, too, according to Seven of Nine,” Ensign Wildman said, crossing her arms over her chest as she considered the puzzle the day had presented to her. “But he won’t say why either.”

“Didn’t they explore Warsarn together?” B’Elanna asked.

“Yes. My theory is that Naomi and Icheb got into a fight with each other while there, but neither of them are talking, so… short of smoking my own daughter out of a Jeffrey’s tube, I’m not sure what to do.”

“Let me finish this,” B’Elanna held up her PADD. “Then maybe I can try? It’s harder to run from somebody who knows the Jeffrey’s tubes just as well as she does.”

Ensign Wildman hesitated, but it was clear she felt she didn’t have anything to lose. “If you’re sure it’s not a bother?”

“Not at all.”

“Then, thank you, and good luck.”

“I’ll let you know how it goes?”

“Thanks again,” the ensign said, turning to leave B’Elanna to her diagnostic report.

When she had read and signed off on the report for the evening, B’Elanna called out, “Computer, locate Naomi Wildman.”

“Naomi Wildman is in Jeffrey’s tube five,” the computer beeped back.

_Surprisingly close. _B’Elanna strode to the other side of the room and quickly popped open the Jeffrery’s tube door, calling, “Computer, lock the secondary hatch to Jeffrey’s tube five.”

The door at the other end of the tube clicked as it locked into place, and B’Elanna paused, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness as she peered into the tube to see Naomi Wildman staring at her from the other end of it, having clearly tried to make her escape via the now-locked hatch. Locking the hatch was a simple solution to the problem presented, but she had a feeling that Ensign Wildman was a nicer person all things considered, and wouldn’t have been as willing to actually trap her own child; the way B’Elanna saw it, Naomi wasn’t really being harmed at all, and by now it was past the girl’s bedtime.

“Come on, kiddo,” B’Elanna said cheerfully. “Your mom says it’s bedtime.”

“I’m not leaving,” Naomi announced fiercely.

B’Elanna arched her eyebrows, noting something was off in Naomi’s tone even as she said, “Oh no? You might want to reconsider that, or I might have to take it as a challenge, and do you really want to challenge a Klingon in what I consider my own territory?”

Naomi blinked at her, and B’Elanna wasn’t sure if it was because the light coming in from behind B’Elanna was bothering Naomi’s eyes, or if she was genuinely thinking as hard as she appeared to be. But with a clearer view of the girl’s face, B’Elanna realized what was different about Naomi’s tone. She’d been crying; her face was flushed inside the close quarters, tear-tracks drying on her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” B’Elanna asked, quieter now, as she climbed into the Jeffrey’s tube and shut the door behind herself, making sure to keep herself between Naomi and the door so the girl couldn’t try to run away again.

“You’re a Klingon,” Naomi said thoughtfully, touching the PADD she had with her so that the faint light from the screen lit up her side of the Jeffrey’s tube.

“Yes? Why?”

“But you’re also human.”

B’Elanna nodded even though Naomi might not have been able to see the gesture, still confused as she said, “You knew all of that already.”

Naomi moved closer, until she sat beside B’Elanna with her knees drawn up to her chest, saying, “But I’ve never thought about it before.”

“I don’t understand,” B’Elanna admitted, tilting her head to the side to do her best to get a good look at Naomi from her place wedged between Naomi and the tube door.

Suddenly, Naomi asked in a stiff voice, “Do you know what a rhino is? Or was, I guess.”

Caught off-guard by the change of topic in a conversation she already wasn’t following, B’Elanna moved into a more comfortable cross-legged position and answered, “It’s an animal, from Africa, right?”

Naomi nodded, shoving her PADD into B’Elanna’s hand. Softly, she said, “This was my first time going somewhere on a world without my mom, and I didn’t realize…”

She trailed off, and B’Elanna looked down at the PADD, hoping it would offer some insight into why Naomi was so clearly upset. A picture of a rhino glared back up at her. A possible picture began to form in B’Elanna’s mind, the likes of which made her stomach clench, and she looked back to Naomi, asking carefully, “What didn’t you understand?”

“How everybody sees me,” Naomi murmured.

“And how’s that?” B’Elanna asked in the same measured tone.

Naomi waved a hand at the PADD, her voice little more than a whisper. “As a dirty little half-breed who doesn’t even fit in with my own family, or with anyone on the ship. A mudblood freak of nature and a—a rhino!”

B’Elanna closed her eyes against the rage building in her chest at whoever had put these ideas into Naomi’s head, sucking in a silent breath to stay calm, before she opened her eyes and firmly swiped the picture of the rhino off the PADD screen. She had known that the people they’d encountered today were primitive by Star Fleet’s standards, but this level of bigotry was ridiculous. It was something she’d hoped none of the children aboard _Voyager _would ever have to experience, but her hopes were thoroughly being dashed now.

“Where did you hear that?” she asked gently.

Naomi answered while clearly trying – and once again failing – to hold back her tears, “Some kids on Warsarn, and their parents.”

“And you’ve been in the Jeffrey’s tubes alone for the past three hours stewing about it?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Naomi explained, a sob punctuating her words as she said, “They made me feel like—like I was dirty, and I didn’t want to bother anyone with it if I wasn’t worth—”

B’Elanna set the PADD aside, cupping Naomi’s damp cheeks to turn her face so that she could meet her eyes. “Naomi Wildman, if you never listen to me again, you listen to me right now.” She kept her touch gentle even though she knew her gaze burned with a conviction that she was struggling to keep from her tone. She wasn’t one of Naomi’s usual friends or teachers, and they both knew it, and B’Elanna didn’t want to frighten the girl, but she had to say _something. _“You are beautiful and loved, and you are most _definitely _not anything like a rhino. You are talented and _brilliant_, and by the time we reach the Alpha Quadrant, the whole world is going to know it, because if a new generation is running this ship by then, I expect _you _will be at the helm. You’re strong and determined and compassionate, and a _credit _to this ship, and to this family that we’ve made from the crew out here. Forget what a few petty backwoods aliens said.”

“But I can’t,” Naomi whispered, and a tear fell onto B’Elanna’s fingertip.

“Okay,” B’Elanna said thoughtfully, wiping away Naomi’s tears with her thumbs. “Maybe that’s fair right now. But can you promise me you’ll try not to dwell on it like you have been this evening?”

Naomi’s brows stayed furrowed, but she said hesitantly, “Maybe.”

Watching Naomi begin to work through some of her pain instead of just _feeling _it, B’Elanna decided she would take a “maybe” right now. “Good. Instead of dwelling on the bad things right now, let’s talk about the good things about being human and Ktarian. Let’s drown out the bad with good.”

“What good?” Naomi asked genuinely.

“Well, what do you know about being Ktarian? What do you know about the culture you share with your father?”

Something about B’Elanna’s statement had struck Naomi, she saw that much in Naomi’s still-glassy eyes, but she also saw that the girl was quickly drawing a blank. “I… know that Ktarians place rocks on the graves of their dead to symbolize the prayers said for the deceased. Commander Chakotay told me a story about that once.”

“Is there anything else?” B’Elanna prompted her with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

Even as she asked, it was dawning on her that, to her knowledge, even the ship’s anthropology class had never gone into particular detail concerning the cultures and peoples represented on _Voyager. _Naomi was the only one aboard with Ktarian blood, a half-human aboard a human ship, and a child who had never met another Ktarian or been to the homeplaces of her people, and right now it showed glaringly. Naomi had always had the same passing interest in Ktarians that she’d had in _any _other subject, and it occurred to B’Elanna that before today she truly may never have considered that there was anything that made her different from the other children aboard.

_How lucky she was for that… and how crushing for all of this to hit her at once like it was._

“My mom and I observe the solstices as they pass on Ktaris; she says it makes her feel closer to my dad, to know we’re doing the same thing as him, at least on those days.”

“How do you celebrate the solstices?” B’Elanna asked pleasantly, glad to see Naomi’s mind turning slowly from the cruel words of others.

“On the first and third solstices, she replicates her favorite meal, and we sing a couple of the songs associated with that solstice. On the second and fourth solstices, we eat my favorite food and sing those solstice songs.”

“That sounds very nice. Cheerful.”

“It is.” Naomi nodded before giving B’Elanna a lighter smile as she said, “It’s not the way we _humans _celebrate the winter solstice, but it’s…” she sobered again, turning her thoughts in a direction B’Elanna could only guess at. “It’s the few days of the year I wish I knew more about… being Ktarian, and what that even means.” She turned troubled eyes to B’Elanna, asking, “Does that even make sense?”

“M-hm. You know, I didn’t know much about the Klingon culture until my mother placed me in monastery schooling on the Klingon home world. I was older then than you are now. So I understand what it is to… be curious, to have days where you feel like there’s something missing – gaps in who you are and where you belong, exactly. All of which I say to tell you that if you _want _to learn more about the Ktarians, if you want to try and fill in some of the gaps in your knowledge while we’re still on _Voyager_, while you’re still young, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” She sighed, informing Naomi, “You will run into cruel, unaccepting people sometimes, and you may very well have to… deal with them. As you grow up, you’ll have to decide how you want to del with it. But if you have to deal with it, I want you to be proud of who you are. I want you to have the _pros_ and the cons of you who you are in that way. And I know this is the first time we have ever talked about it, but if you ever need to talk to someone about it again, I’m here. Or if you want to crawl up into Jeffrey’s tubes and sit, I’ll sit with you. Okay?”

Naomi blinked as her for a moment, but nodded.

“You believe me, right?” B’Elanna checked. She was busy – always – with Tom, her job, and those who reported to her, but for this she would _make _time.

“Yes.”

“You promise you’ll do it?”

Naomi considered B’Elanna, more thoughts in her eyes that B’Elanna could only guess at. After a moment she said, her words carefully chosen, “I promise to talk to someone when I need it, yes.”

There was a loophole somewhere in there in Naomi’s mind, B’Elanna could tell, but she didn’t push the matter. For now, it was enough that Naomi was giving her another small smile. B’Elanna smiled back, nodding sharply. “Good.”

“Lieutenant Torres?”

“Yes?”

“Learning about the Ktarians: how… where should I start?”

“Well,” B’Elanna considered. “I would start with the Doctor and Seven of Nine. They know best what PADDs are onboard. Maybe there are some about the Ktarians that you haven’t read yet.”

“Of course.” Naomi’s smile came easier now. Research she knew how to do. “And Lieutenant Torres?” Sincerity leaked back into her tone as B’Elanna arched a curious eyebrow. “Thank you. For talking to me about all of this.”

B’Elanna cracked another gentle smile, saying, “Of course. Anytime. I’m glad I could help.” Feeling their conversation drawing to a natural close, she popped open the hatch and slipped out. Calm now, Naomi followed her. Handing the PADD back to the girl, she refrained from grimacing as she said, “I hope I helped, anyway.”

“You did.” Naomi smiled brightly at her as she said, “If it’s okay, I’m going to go return this PADD to the Doctor and ask him if he has any on Ktarians.”

“Check in with your mom first,” B’Elanna suggested. “It is past your bedtime, after all.”

Naomi frowned for a second, but nodded. “Okay.”

Giving her a sharp nod once more, B’Elanna said teasingly, “Dismissed.”

She watched Naomi dart off, a sick feeling of trepidation and melancholy curling in her stomach as she turned back to her work. She pushed the feelings away, telling herself that Naomi was strong enough to handle whatever came her way, and today B’Elanna had helped her through, and today that was enough.


End file.
